Surrogate Uterus

The Surrogate Uterus: Baby M and theBioethics Commission Reportby Harold Cassidywithin Bioethics, CultureOn August 8, 2012, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie issued an absolute veto ofSenate Bill 1599, which would have created a statute enabling and enforcing socalled gestational surrogacy arrangements. The bill was sponsored by NewJersey State Senator Joseph Vitale, and substantially drafted by Melissa Brisman, acommercial surrogacy broker. If signed into law, it would have been the mostradical surrogacy bill anywhere in the nation.In public hearings, neither Brisman nor the bills sponsors, nor anyone else,discussed the 177-page New Jersey Bioethics Commission report that condemnedgestational surrogacy and strongly recommended against such an enabling statute.Governor Christie, in his veto statement, expressed grave concern that thesupporters and sponsors of S1599 did insufficient study and consideration of themany problems that surrogacy poses, especially those discussed by the BioethicsCommission.Some fervently believe that if gestational surrogacy laws were to be widelyaccepted they would irreparably change human civilization. Gestational surrogacyis now front and center for debate, not only in New Jersey, but across the nation. Itdemands attention. Motherhood itself is now on trial.As the attorney who was chief counsel in the first contested surrogacy case in theUnited States that struck down surrogate mother contracts as unenforceable, ar